‘Olivia?’ She shook her sister. Olivia was lying in the coffin with her arms folded across her chest. ‘What are you doing ?’
Olivia sat up, shielding her eyes from the light. ‘Huh?’ She squinted at Ivy almost as if she didn’t recognise her.
‘What are you doing in my coffin?’ Ivy cocked her head, a little worried now. Her twin looked pasty and pale – but, then again, Transylvania wasn’t quite as sunny as Franklin Grove.
‘I’m sorry.’ Olivia spoke as if it was an effort. ‘I didn’t have the energy to climb into my own bunk. I figured you wouldn’t mind if I took a nap in yours.’
Ivy smiled. ‘Of course not. It just gave me a scare seeing you in my coffin like that. You were sleeping like the dead!’
‘It’s surprisingly comfortable,’ said Olivia, nestling back into the red velour cushioning. She closed her eyes. ‘Would you mind shutting the lid?’
Wow, the jet lag must have really caught up with her, thought Ivy as she gently closed the lid on her human twin. Bunnies were more vulnerable to that sort of thing, Ivy knew. There was probably no need to worry. Olivia just needed a good nap and maybe a cup of coffee to jump-start her into Transylvania time.
The bedroom door was flung open, making Ivy jump. ‘Shhh! Olivia’s going to sleep!’ Then she saw it was Tessa.
‘Sorry!’ Tessa whispered. ‘Can I hide out here for a bit?’
‘Yeah, no problem.’ Ivy offered her the swivel chair at the desk. Tessa’s hair was in tangles and her mascara was smudged under her eyes. Suddenly, Ivy wished Olivia could be more . . . well, awake. Her sister watched every one of those wedding shows. She would be much better at comforting a clearly stressed-out bride.
Ivy sat on the floor, playing with her shoelaces. What if she said the wrong thing? ‘Um, is everything OK, Tessa? You seem, sort of, all over the place?’ She cringed. That hadn’t come out right.
‘Huh? Me?’ Tessa’s eyes flicked up. She’d been staring into space. ‘I’m fine. Just typical wedding craziness.’
‘I guess that’s to be expected when you’re planning the wedding of the century.’ Ivy tried to smile before she became tongue-tied again. The two sat in uncomfortable silence.
Ivy glanced up and saw Olivia’s camera on the desk by the computer. Olivia had been diligently snapping pictures ever since they’d arrived. It reminded Ivy that she should be doing more for her article. It wasn’t going to write itself! But now hardly seemed like the right time to interview Tessa.
Then Ivy had another idea. She stood up and picked the camera off the desk. ‘Do you want to check out Olivia’s pictures? Maybe it will take your mind off all the crazy wedding stuff for a bit.’
Tessa gave a tired smile. ‘OK.’
‘Great.’ Ivy pushed the power button and the screen lit up. ‘If I know my sister, she’ll have taken some killer shots.’
Sitting together on the narrow swivel chair, Ivy scrolled through the photos. There was a stunning picture of the rose meadow, and one of the mansion reflected in the glinting glass of the greenhouse. Olivia really did have an eye for this sort of thing. She had used different camera features to brighten the colours and the natural lighting to highlight certain parts of the scenery. If anything, Olivia had made the house and grounds look even more spectacular than they appeared in real life.
But what – or, who – was that in the background? Tessa craned her neck to take a closer look. Ivy leaned in, absorbed in Olivia’s shot. There was a figure lurking on the edge of the screen. She clicked the zoom button twice. It was the OTT caped vampire that she had run into on the side of the road. In the shot Olivia had taken, he was standing in a clump of tall bushes. Somebody’s taking this creepy horror-movie shtick too far, thought Ivy, noticing that in the picture he was staring up towards the castle. What was he doing?
‘That is the weirdest thing. I ran into that same guy on the road outside the palace,’ Ivy explained, staring at the shadowy figure lurking in the background of Olivia’s photo. ‘Total creepazoid, if you know what I mean. Do you think we should tell someone? I’m sure you don’t want anyone gate-crashing your big day.’
But when Ivy turned, Tessa was gone. Vanished. What was that about? Did Tessa know the guy in the picture? No – no way that guy could know a soon-to-be-princess. Maybe Tessa had just remembered some last-minute detail she had to attend to before the big day. Ivy didn’t know the first thing about weddings, so that was entirely possible. But why would she run off without saying a word?
This royal wedding was really beginning to mess with people’s heads!
Chapter Eight
So much food and so little desire to eat it! Olivia knew this rehearsal dinner for the wedding was going to be totally wasted on her. She rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and pushed her cheek into her palm. Buttery rolls, smoked-salmon roulades and miniature quiches were piled high on silver platters, but tonight, nothing could tempt her.
She should have been enjoying the candlelit banquet, but instead she was weak and clammy. Everything felt so distant – even Ivy and her bio-dad seemed a mile off, and they were on either side of her!
Lillian’s voice came from the other side of Charles. ‘The candelabra are just lovely. And who put together those gorgeous star-gazer arrangements?’ She sounded tinny and far away. It was like Olivia was living in a dream within a dream.
Jet lag plus Helga’s potion – which had to be the most vile thing she’d ever put in her mouth, including a non-vegetarian sausage she’d picked up by mistake at Ivy’s house that summer – were proving to be a powerful combination. She would be OK soon – any moment now. She just needed to catch her second wind, that was all. Perhaps she could distract herself by sharing her secret theory with Ivy.
‘Guess what?’ she whispered, leaning over to her twin. ‘I think there’s another romance blossoming here. I’m sure Horatio has a crush on the gardener, Helga.’ Before she could go into more detail she noticed something across the room. ‘Hey. What’s with Tessa?’ she asked. The bride-to-be was staring glassy-eyed into the distance, not paying a bit of attention to any of the conversations going on around her. She seemed in even more of a funk than Olivia.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ivy, whose chunky black bracelets jangled as she took another helping of chocolate marshmallow platelets for dessert. ‘It’s weird. She came to our room to hide out while you were napping. One moment she was there and the next she had run out of the bedchamber without saying a word. This wedding must be really getting to her.’